There are few sponges known from the end-Ordovician to early-Silurian strata all over the world, and no records of sponge fossils have been found yet in China during this interval. Here we report a unique sponge assemblage spanning the interval of the end-Ordovician mass extinction from the Kaochiapien Formation (Upper Ordovician-Lower Silurian) in South China. This assemblage contains a variet...

Abstract In the western Tafilalt area, eastern Anti-Atlas (Morocco), solutan echinoderms are a major faunal element of most echinoderm Lagerstätten occurring within Lower Ktaoua Formation (late Sandbian–early Katian). For first time, members class Soluta formally described from Morocco and Africa. All solutans identified as Dendrocystites aff. sedgwicki . Three size-related morphotypes, probabl...

-The Ordovician Radiation exhibited a global transition in dominance from the Cambrian evolutionary fauna (e.g., trilobites), to the Paleozoic and Modern faunas (e.g., articulate brachiopods and bivalve molluscs). Although its causes have yet to be determined definitively, the transition coincided with increased global tectonism. Erosion of source areas uplifted during orogenic activity increas...

The catastrophic disruption of the L chondrite parent body in the asteroid belt c. 470 Ma initiated a prolonged meteorite bombardment of Earth that started in the Ordovician and continues today. Abundant L chondrite meteorites in Middle Ordovician strata have been interpreted to be the consequence of the asteroid breakup event. Here we report a zircon U-Pb date of 467.50±0.28 Ma from a distinct...

The annulated orthoceridans of the Middle and Late Ordovician of Baltoscandia are described and their systematic frame is revised. The revision of these nautiloids, which are part of the Orthocerida and Pseudorthocerida, is based on the investigation of characters of the septal neck, the siphuncular tube, and the apex. An unequivocal terminology of these characters is suggested and applied. The...

Calcareous skeletons evolved as part of the greater Ediacaran/Cambrian diversification of marine animals; however, skeletons did not become permanent, globally important sources of carbonate sediment until the Ordovician radiation. Representative carbonate facies in a Series 3 Cambrian to Tremadocian succession from western Newfoundland and Ordovician successions from the Ibex area, Utah, show ...

There was a major diversification known as the Ordovician Radiation, in the period immediately following the Cambrian. This event is unique in taxonomic, ecologic and biogeographic aspects.While all of the phyla but one were established during the Cambrian explosion, taxonomic increases during the Ordovician were manifest at lower taxonomic levels although ordinal level diversity doubled. Marin...

Abstract Zygocycloides ? foerstei n. sp. is described from the Llandovery (Aeronian) Brassfield Formation of southwestern Ohio. This among oldest reported Silurian cyclocystoids North America and only American cyclocystoid that preserved with a complete rim marginal ossicles. Smith Paul, 1982 most similar to Nicholsodiscus Glass et al., 2003 (Katian) Perforocycloides Ewin 2019 (Llandovery, Tely...